Google began to track purchases in offline stores

Google Inc. has announced ( on the site of the subsidiary Doubleclick ) the development of new software interfaces Conversions API , which will allow advertisers to combine online and offline methods to monitor the users / customers, which means that the introduction of more advanced and functional system of targeted advertising.

With Conversions API shops can integrate information collected in offline shops into an online data set of Google. In other words, the purchase of goods in stores in the next street can lead to what information will be in the database of Google. In terms of commercial companies, this means a more accurate and comprehensive monitoring of user activity, accurate calculation of the effect of advertising campaigns. From the point of view of the user, it develops a little different picture. This means that after the purchase in the offline store, you can see online contextual advertising which is delivered to you with information about making a purchase.

The official Google employees blog explains that to date there was a certain “gap” between the statistics gathered by the user online and statistics collected offline. Then there and there the user is going to give a lot of information, but these two databases are weakly related. Google aims to bridge this gap and merge databases. Of course, the easiest way to do this is import the information on purchases by credit card, but this method is not so simple: banks do not want to share information on grounds of bank security. Thus Google has gone around to collect information directly from the outlets.

Of course, Google ensures complete security of information, which is stored in a secure repository and in any case cannot be transferred to third parties. Such concern for the safety of information is quite natural, because in the case of data leakage value of exclusive information is greatly reduced. Therefore, Google will certainly protect it well. Unfortunately, this protection does not operate against the public inquiries and court rulings that require Google to give any information about the user.

From a technical point of view, tracking users and linking of offline purchases to its online stories is possible only through plastic card. If a person uses the same plastic card in the calculations online and offline, Google can import data from an offline store and link them to the same account.